Allegories of Underdevelopment: Aesthetics and Politics in Modern Brazilian Cinema

"A camera in the hand and ideas in the head" was the primary axiom of the young originators of Brazil's Cinema Novo. This movement of the late 1960s and 1970s overcame technical constraints and produced films made on practically non-existent budgets. This work examines a number of these films, arguing that they served to represent a nation undergoing a political and social transformation into modernity. Film maker Glauber Rocha claimed that Cinema Novo was driven by an "aesthetics of hunger". This scarcity of means demanded new cinematic approaches which eventually gave rise to a legitimate and unique Third World cinema. This text presents and interprets revolutionary films - from the works of Rocha to the experiments of Julio Bressane, Rogerio Sganzerla, Andrea Tonaci and Arthur Omar. Focusing on each film maker's use of narrative allegories for the "conservative modernization" Brazil and other nations underwent in the 1960s and 1970s, the author asks questions relating to the connection between film and history. He examines the way in which Cinema Novo transformed Brazil's cultural memory and charts the reactionary roles which Marginal Cinema and Tropicalism played in this process. Among the films he discusses are "Brazil: Year 2000", "Black God White Devil", "Land in Anguish", "Red Light Bandit", "Macunaima", "Antonio das Mortes", "The Angel is Born", and "Killed the Family and went to the Movies". A history of modern Brazilian cinema, this book brings to light the work of many film makers who are virtually unknown in the English-speaking world.